Aquatic Faunal Survey of the Lower Amazon

一个生物多样性专家小组将对巴西亚马孙盆地下游淡水栖息地的自由生活的水生海绵、扁虫、环节动物、软体动物、甲壳类和鱼类进行清点。与盆地的其他部分相比，这一地区的采样明显较差，仍然是热带科学发现的最后前沿之一。来自美国、巴西和其他国家机构的调查人员将进行一系列多栖息地、多季节的探险，以收集、拍摄、识别、编目和分析水生动物。该项目将产生大量与地理有关的标本收藏，制作在线和印刷的动物群指南，生成关于亚马逊水生动物生态和进化的物种描述、分类修订和综合研究，并将为学生培训提供独特的机会。该项目产生的收集、数据和产品将成为持久的资源，以了解亚马逊非凡的多样性是如何产生和维持的，这种多样性对人类压力的适应能力如何，以及如何保护它。因此，项目成果将对渔业和自然资源管理、生态学、生物地理学、古生物学、地质学、进化生物学、考古学和人类学的专业人员很有价值。该项目还将造福于依赖水生资源谋生的亚马逊人，以及希望更多了解亚马逊的世界各地的公众？S令人着迷但受到威胁的水生生物。

A team of biodiversity specialists will inventory the free-living aquatic sponges, flatworms, annelid worms, mollusks, crustaceans, and fishes of the freshwater habitats of the lower Amazon basin of Brazil. This region is remarkably poorly sampled in comparison to other parts of the basin, and remains one of the last frontiers for scientific discovery in the tropics. Investigators from institutions in the U.S., Brazil and other countries will undertake a multi-habitat, multi-season series of expeditions to collect, photograph, identify, catalog, and analyze the aquatic fauna. The project will yield large geo-referenced collections of specimens, produce on-line and printed faunal guides, generate species descriptions, taxonomic revisions, and synthetic studies of the ecology and evolution of Amazonian aquatic animals, and will provide unique opportunities for student training.The collections, data, and products generated by this project will serve as a lasting resource for understanding how the extraordinary diversity of the Amazon is generated and maintained, how resilient this diversity is to human pressure, and how it can be protected. Project results will therefore be valuable to professionals in fisheries and natural resource management, ecology, biogeography, paleontology, geology, evolutionary biology, archaeology, and anthropology. This project will also benefit people of the Amazon whose livelihoods are dependent upon aquatic resources, and members of the public worldwide who wish to learn more about the Amazon?s fascinating yet threatened aquatic life.